


don't ask me to repeat it

by maunwocha



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apologies, Cuddling & Snuggling, Finn and Murphy cross the Dead Zone together, Finn only manages to kill the one old man and then is banished, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Graphic Description, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Nightmares, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Touch-Starved, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maunwocha/pseuds/maunwocha
Summary: Murphy’s eyes are closed, but he can feel Finn looking at him, studying his face. He does it all the time, when he thinks Murphy isn’t looking. It makes sense, kinda, since there’s not really much else to look at out here, but it’s a little annoying right now. Murphy is trying to sleep, and Finn is thinking so. loud.//Murphy prevents the massacre in Lincoln's village. Finn gets banished, and crosses the Dead Zone with Murphy.
Relationships: Finn Collins/John Murphy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah. Mufinn content, finally. I talk about it enough, I figure it's time to put my money where my mouth is. I have a couple ideas for a story like this, so if you like it and want more I might continue it (though my other stories will take precedence, jsyk)! We need more Mufinn content and I will supply that need!!!! Thank you for reading, as always I appreciate any and all feedback so please comment your thoughts!! <3
> 
> title from Pink Lemonade by YVA

They’re lying close together on the sand, curled up and facing each other, a mirror’s image. Murphy can hardly bear the sun during the day, but at night the temperature plummets. He shivers and pulls his limbs in closer. The shawl beneath them is really only big enough for their upper bodies, leaving their feet freezing on the cold sand. It’s absolutely miserable, but at least he’s got Finn.

Murphy’s eyes are closed, but he can feel Finn looking at him, studying his face. He does it all the time, when he thinks Murphy isn’t looking. It makes sense, kinda, since there’s not really much else to look at out here, but it’s a little annoying right now. Murphy is trying to sleep, and Finn is thinking so. loud.

“Murphy,” Finn whispers, punctuating the soft sounds of shifting sands and wind. “Are you awake?”

He considers not answering, forcing Finn to think himself to sleep alone. They don’t really speak during the day, sometimes exchanging a few words at night as they prepare for sleep, about what they’re doing and where they’re going. Together, they agreed to follow Jaha until they found this City place, because nothing else was left.

Well, they never said that last part, but they both knew it. Ugh, _fine_.

“You know I am,” Murphy grumbles back, not opening his eyes. What, are they having a slumber party? Are they gonna whisper secrets back and forth? He’s too tired for this, too angry.

He hears Finn shift a little. “I was wrong about you,” Finn breathes, even softer.

Murphy opens his eyes, because that is not what he was expecting. Finn’s eyebrows are drawn together, an expression very familiar now, but painted all over with guilt. Something in the air changes, and Murphy’s pulse skyrockets.

He smirks a little, hiding. “Oh yeah?”

“I’m serious, Murphy,” Finn insists, scooting closer. His first instinct is to pull away, but Murphy is _so_ cold, so he lets their hands fall closer together, almost touching. “Everyone was wrong. Even if we weren’t, you never deserved what we did to you.”

A heavy stone forms in Murphy’s throat that doesn’t go away when he tries to swallow it. That’s what Finn has been mulling over this whole time? Murphy wants to turn around, he wants Finn to stop talking, he wants to vanish. He doesn’t move. He cannot vanish.

“And maybe you don’t need to hear me say it,” Finn continues, eyes wet. “But I needed to be sure that someone told you that,” he pauses, looks at his hands inches away from Murphy’s. “ _I_ wanted to be the one who told you that.”

Very slowly, clearly telegraphing every movement, Finn flexes his fingers open and reaches for Murphy’s hand. There’s roaring in his ears and it takes Murphy a moment to realize it’s his own blood rushing so loud, not the winds of the desert blowing above. He swallows one more time, just in case it might dislodge the stone (it doesn’t), and takes Finn’s hand.

The rush of warmth at the contact is immediate, and feels so good Murphy makes a little noise in the back of his throat before he can stop himself, melting even closer. Their knees are hovering very close, now. That’s how they feel, Finn and Murphy, in Murphy’s mind, like they are hovering closer and closer all the time. Murphy shivers with his whole body.

“Are you cold?” Finn murmurs, and it’s so quiet and soft that Murphy nods before he can think better of it.

Just as slow as before, Finn raises his other hand, reaches across Murphy to pull them close together. If his hand was a splash, this is an entire ocean wave. Naturally, their legs tangle together, and Murphy sighs, rests his forehead on Finn’s. It’s actually insane, how much warmer he is now. He pulls both hands to his chest, wrapped around one of Finn’s, and shifts in closer. Finn starts to rub his hand up and down Murphy’s back quickly, trying to generate heat maybe, but it’s way too much.

“Ah, _stop_ ,” Murphy gasps, squeezing Finn’s hand and crashing into him, leaning away from the overstimulating touch. He ends up scooching down so his head is tucked under Finn’s chin, pressed in close to his neck.

Finn takes his hand away immediately. “Sorry,” he whispers, then rests his hand in one spot between Murphy’s shoulder blades. “Is this okay?”

Murphy nods, tries to relax his clenched jaw.

After not that long at all, it isn’t miserable anymore. Actually, it’s… nice. Really nice. He’s starting to get sleepy. Embarrassingly, stinging tears spring to Murphy’s eyes, and he’s grateful Finn can’t look at him right now.

“Thank you,” Murphy mumbles, lips brushing lightly on Finn’s pulse point. He feels the other boy jump at the touch. “For coming with me.”

 _For not leaving me alone_ , he doesn’t say, but Finn holds him closer, so maybe he heard it anyway. Maybe it wasn’t really a choice, since none of Finn’s old friends could look at him after what did and didn’t happen in Lincoln’s village.

“Thank _you_ ,” Finn replies, turning to rest his cheek on Murphy’s head. “For knocking the gun out of my hands.”

Man, he’s too tired for this. He thinks about Finn’s hand surrounded by both of his right now, of the snap of his heart back when he lunged forward to stop him from killing anyone else in that village, staunchly _not_ the survivor’s move. The cold mud had soaked into the knees of his pants as he pinned Finn to the ground, screaming for him to stop fighting him, stop, _please_. How Finn stumbled when he dragged him away, Murphy’s gun aimed at the Grounders still, how he fell to his knees and cried when Clarke came crashing through the trees.

So it isn’t just about stopping him from killing more people, even though it is. It’s Finn thanking him for taking a risk to help him, so that he didn’t have to be alone with what he did, after. For risking his life, but also for risking what little progress he’d made getting back into good graces with Bellamy and the rest of them, to save Finn from himself.

He’s still not sure why he did it, and some options are easier to consider than others, but it’s so much harder to ignore the ones he doesn’t want to consider when Murphy is touching him like this, when their chests are rising and falling in sync.

The truth is that Finn was always fair to him, even when no one else was, even when it seemed like Finn didn’t even like him. Murphy will remember forever Finn’s arms around his legs, holding him up from the noose for just a gasp of air before they managed to cut him down. Finn tossing him his knife when he got banished. Stepping in front of Bellamy’s rifle when he came back.

It’s nothing special about him, he knows; it’s something special about Finn. He didn’t have to like someone to stick up for them, that was just how he was. He wouldn’t go along with everyone else, even under pressure. Murphy didn’t have any delusions about being someone important to Finn, but that was almost a relief, in a way. Took some of the usual unrelenting pressure to be good away, whatever “good” means to everyone else. There was security in knowing Finn would advocate for him when no one else would.

Maybe Murphy felt the urge to reciprocate that, just this time. Just for Finn.

“Anytime,” he says finally, running his thumb experimentally along the back of Finn’s hand.

Finn responds by pulling him in closer, breathing in deeply, and again Murphy is struck by how natural it all feels. It feels like they should have been cuddling like this every night, fighting the cold together.

Together. That’s new, but not bad, or at least not yet. It feels good to be on this journey with someone else, someone who will protect him from Jaha if necessary, and it is starting to feel more and more necessary. He snuggles in closer, and Finn responds in kind, lifting his hand from Murphy’s back to stroke his hair softly.

Sleep finds them quickly after that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murphy and Finn make it across the Dead Zone, and the sea, to the lighthouse bunker, and get trapped inside together. Try as he might to make their new life work, Murphy can't keep the nightmares at bay. Finn is there, like always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise.... more Mufinn. That option won in my little poll and also I was dying to write this, so here you go. Thinking of turning this into a little series of Mufinn scenes in this AU I'm building, let me know what you think. Thank you so much for reading, I would love to hear from you in the comments!!!

“Murphy! Murphy, wake up!”

He’s on the floor, he realizes, and also screaming. Murphy shuts his mouth with a snap and scrambles backward, disoriented. His back hits the couch with a thump, so he must have thrashed to the ground in his sleep. They fought about it, at first, who would sleep where. Murphy likes the couch because it’s closer to the food, and the bathroom. Besides, the bed in the other room is… big. Too soft.

Finn is kneeling on the floor in front of him, coffee table shoved away to make room. He’s breathless, eyes wide and scared, but not like he’s afraid of Murphy. He’s also in his boxers.

Finn’s hand finds his shoulder. “You okay?”

It’s the Bad Shoulder, so Murphy rolls away from the touch. “Fine,” he grits out, looking at anything other than Finn, hot tears of shame already pooling in his eyes. His heart is still racing, and he pulls his knees to his chest, like maybe his legs will muffle how loudly his pulse is thundering. It must sound this loud to Finn, too.

Finn reaches for him again. “Murphy—”

“Don’t!” Murphy cries, shoving Finn roughly away from him and shooting to his feet. The room spins and he stumbles a little, tripping on his blanket tangled on the floor. He catches himself on the arm of the couch, barely, and honest to god growls when Finn stands and holds his hands out, like he wants to steady him. Mercifully, Finn backs off, but he doesn’t go away. Why won’t he just go away?

“Was it a nightmare?” he asks quietly, and Murphy groans, feeling weak. His snap of panicked energy earlier is already washing away. He slumps onto the couch just a bit.

Murphy closes his eyes. “What do you think,” he hisses, and that’s the closest Finn will get to an outright admission. Before all this, he would have just denied it, told Finn to fuck off until he finally listened. With anyone else, anywhere else, he still would. But it’s Finn, and they’ve been here a month already. Finn knows him well enough now to be able to call him on his bullshit, and he _will_.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me about it,” Finn says, breathing slow and deliberate breaths. “Ever, if you don’t want to. But you don’t have to go through this alone.”

Murphy squeezes his eyes tighter, like that will make Finn go away, like it will make what he just said disappear from where it lingers in the air, on his skin. “Shut up,” he spits, clenching his fists.

“Please, Murphy,” Finn mutters, stepping closer. He shouldn’t, he should stay away. His proximity to Murphy is what got him stuck down here in the first place. Murphy feels on fire, unhinged. He’ll swing on him if he tries to touch him, maybe. “Please don’t push me away.”

And his eyes fly open, because _fuck_ , Murphy doesn’t know how to do that. Already, Finn has infiltrated his defenses, pushed past how he hides to everyone else and exposed what lies beneath. Maybe not all of it, but enough. Enough to make Murphy want to run away from him, tell him to leave him alone, not to touch him or talk to him ever again. Makes him feel raw, an open wound.

But they’re stuck here, aren’t they? There is no running away. Just like Murphy doesn’t have anyone but Finn, Finn doesn’t have anyone but him. That is their reality, until they get out of here, or die of starvation, whichever happens first. It doesn’t serve either of them to fight or hurt each other or ignore each other.

God, he wants to fight it. Every part of him screams at him to, to run, run, _run_ from this, to pull away, to scream or fight or _something_ , anything but let Finn in.

Finn steps even closer. They are breathing the same air. Heat is radiating from Finn’s chest, and it’s like Murphy can _feel_ the energy passing between them, a silent exchange of power and feeling that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

It’s intoxicating. “I wanna go to sleep,” Murphy mumbles, eyes feeling suddenly heavy. “I want you to hold me,” he admits, quieter.

Finn’s eyes soften, and he reaches forward, takes Murphy’s hand. “I’ll hold you,” he whispers, pulling him gently back to the small bedroom. Murphy stumbles forward, clinging to Finn’s fingers.

He lifts the blankets up for them, pulls Murphy in close when they get into bed. It tingles where their bare skin touches—Murphy is suddenly very aware of his near-nakedness, and Finn’s; they both sleep in their boxers.

His nightmare lingers between them where they lie on the bed, Murphy’s head resting on Finn’s shoulder. It’s why they’re here, and it will stay there, until he says something.

“I tried not to tell them anything,” Murphy finally says, speaking before he knows he will. Finn’s touch is unleashing it. “I tried so hard.”

Finn is silent, lifts his arm to pull Murphy in close, petting his hair. He doesn’t clarify what he’s talking about, because Finn’s certainly pieced it together by now, what makes him scream at night. It’s when he was banished.

“And it was fine at first, you know? They just hit me, burned me, whipped me once,” he continues, voice flat. “None of that was new. Mom hit me, the guards hurt me all the time in the Sky Box. Burning my shoulder was the worst thing they did, at that point. I thought I could handle it.”

He stops, because it’s already too hard, and he can feel Finn’s jaw clench. It’s never occurred to Murphy before that this would also be hard for someone else to listen to. He’s never thought about telling anyone, before.

“Then they started to cut me,” he whispers. Perhaps accidentally, but also maybe not, Finn runs his thumb softly over one of the ropes of scar tissue on Murphy’s back. “My back first, then my feet. My chest. My face.”

Murphy knows Finn has seen the evidence of all of this, anyone who can see him can. He thinks of the pools of blood in his boots when he made it back to camp, the way he still found dried blood on him for weeks, because he never got to wash it away properly. Everything left scars, and Finn’s seen him with less clothes on than anyone since he escaped his torture.

“I gave in, after that. I told them everything,” his voice cracks, and he miserably thinks of Bellamy yelling at him for it. “That didn’t make them stop. They still pulled all my fingernails out.”

Finn stiffens next to him, his hand freezing in Murphy’s hair. His fingernails were among his most obvious injuries, after, so it must be the revelation that it was for no reason that makes Finn react. Maybe someday Murphy will tell him all of it felt like it was for no reason, for him.

Murphy laughs humorlessly. “That was just for fun, I think.”

He laughs again, and then he’s crying.

He wants to stop but he can’t, he can’t. Murphy’s shoulders tremble with the force of it, this great cracking open. Finn shifts away, just a little, to look at him in surprise. He’s open-mouthed sobbing, like a child. Finn tore him open.

Finn moves forward all at once, with his whole body, pulling Murphy over and on top of him, pressing him close to his chest. Murphy gasps, panics a little at the sudden touch, but melts into him, burying his face in Finn’s neck. Finn’s cheek is wet, Murphy can feel it on his ear. He’s crying, too.

“I will never let anyone hurt you like that again,” Finn vows in his ear, barely audible, like he hasn’t said it out loud at all, but sent it straight into Murphy’s head. “ _Ever_.”

Murphy sobs, ragged, but can’t stop himself from laughing. “Gonna keep me safe from everyone else down here with us?”

Finn laughs a little too, pulls Murphy in closer. “I mean it,” he says, growing serious once more. “If we die down here, if we make it out. I’ve got you from now on.”

Murphy can’t breathe for a second. Finn just offered to die with him. And like, they’re in here, they’ll die whether they like it or not. But it’s one thing to die together, another to agree that you will, to vow to keep someone safe until you do. That’s how Murphy feels, he realizes with a jolt; safe. He likes how Finn is touching him, how their bodies are melded together between these too-soft sheets, how Finn’s breath moves the air at the nape of his neck. He can be safe, here with Finn, because Finn won’t hurt him and there’s no one else around, not even to witness them.

Murphy stops crying, eventually, and then they’re just lying there, tangled together. He breathes Finn in, feeling like they melt closer together with every shared breath. It reminds him of so many nights in the desert, only so, so different now. Bodies the same, but this time their skin is touching, this time they’re alone. This time, Murphy trusts him.

Finn is getting hard against Murphy’s thigh. He thinks about not acknowledging it, pretending he fell asleep or something, but they’ve entered this realm together, one where things that normally would hide step into the light instead. Murphy turns in his arms, so they are facing each other, faces hovering centimeters apart.

“I’m sorry,” Finn whispers, awkward. His cheeks are flushed, and he’s biting his lip, unsure. If Murphy weren’t already on top of him, he’d want to jump him right there.

Murphy snakes his hand out from underneath Finn to cup his cheek, make him look at him. “I’m not.”

Finn stares into his eyes, disbelieving for a moment, then leans forward to catch Murphy’s lips in his.

The kiss is painfully shy, so tender it almost makes Murphy cry again. Finn pulls away immediately, eyes tracking back and forth between Murphy’s. _Is it okay?_ Murphy nods, presses forward once more, and this time the kiss is much longer, and closer. He pulls his leg across Finn to straddle him, and the way their entire bodies just snap together like magnets is delicious. Finn winds his fingers through Murphy’s tangled hair, moans a little into his mouth. Murphy’s pulse jumps again, and it’s too much, suddenly.

“Wait,” he gasps, pushing Finn down into the mattress with one hand on his chest.

Finn’s hands are on his arms immediately. “You okay?”

Murphy nods. “Sorry, it’s just… I’ve never…”

Even in this honest place, it’s too embarrassing to admit his sexual inexperience aloud. Finn hears him anyway, like he always does, because he knows how to listen to what Murphy doesn’t say, too. He smiles, soft, and brushes Murphy’s hair from his face.

“No pressure,” he assures him, running his knuckles lightly up and down Murphy’s arms, sending shivers all through him. “I want whatever you want.”

 _God_. Murphy lets his head drop, rests his forehead on Finn’s gently, leans in to kiss him again. What if Murphy just wants to kiss him in this bed forever? What if he wants this moment to go on for eternity?

Like he’s been possessed, a yawn seizes him, and he claps his hand over his mouth in surprise. He really is tired. Finn laughs softly, and Murphy can feel the rumbling in his chest underneath him.

“C’mere,” Finn says, waving Murphy forward. He crashes into him, nose in Finn’s neck once more. He fits there, perfectly. Not quite on top of him anymore, Murphy tucks his left arm between them, winding his right around Finn’s middle. This is nice, too.

He’s so warm, and comfortable. Murphy falls asleep fast, and he does not dream.


End file.
